


Cold Cases: Chase Stone

by AnnabethBlack



Category: Drawfee RPF
Genre: Drawfee - Freeform, Gen, Poses and Clotheses, Swearing, We're sorry, detective fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-19 00:20:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9409016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnabethBlack/pseuds/AnnabethBlack
Summary: Four part detective fic.Detective Delaney has worked many cases in their life but no story has stuck with them as much as that of Chase Stone, international pie thief. Read the story of the first and only time Chase nearly got caught by the fuzz and witness the impact such a handsome, dynamically posed criminal had on those pursuing him.





	1. The First Case

The world is full of scum bags, you know? It’s teeming with guys who think because they’re big bad men with loads of money and cash that they can just walk all over the little guy and take whatever they goddamn want. Not on my watch. No sir, never on my watch.

I put away a lot of assholes in my time working with the force. Jerks taking advantage of the fear that teemed through the streets like a plague of rats. It was a time of change and for the majority of people out there (the minorities, you know?) it was a time of god damn horror. Corrupt cops beating and even goddamn shooting anyone who wasn’t white and getting away with it to! A molesting president who was leading the country right down the path to war. Increased costs of living while work wages plummeted nearly every day. If you weren’t rich, well, you certainly weren’t going to get rich any time soon. Not with the corporate goons robbing you in broad daylight while the gangs mugged you at night.

Fucking horrible.

Being a detective I met a bunch of people from all walks of life. Everyone was being robbed every which way. Lucky me, I only dealt with high profile cases. Serial stuff, you know? None of this gun point crap that ended with the perp dead on the floor after a firing match between his buddies and the cops. I kept far away from the murders and the kidnappings. I wasn’t so… delicate with the departed or the grieving so mainly the chief stuck me on busting up drug rings and tracking down stolen “items of value”. It was a bad gig but I still made my enemies. What detective didn’t?

You know, I wasn’t bad at my job. It wasn’t easy but at least I was never even tempted to go bad. I had my code and I stuck to it. Sure, I wasn’t bringing about the hard type of justice that the public want to read about in the news – I never caught no mass murderer or sent a kiddie stealer to the chair – but I helped make the world a better place in my time. That’s what fucking counts.

No, I was never tempted to go bad. Didn’t take any money to turn my back, even if it meant I woke up in the hospital or had a gun pointed right between my eyes. There was this one case though, this one time where I considered letting the jack ass go. I didn’t in the end – what’s the point in having a code or the law if you don’t fucking follow it? – but I didn’t exactly catch the guy either. Slimy bastard slipped through my fingers. What can I say? He was smarter than me, faster. Charming as anything but not my cup of tea. I’m not saying he was right to do what he did or that he got what he deserved but I don’t exactly regret not catching him. One way or another it makes a good story.

Chase Stone.

What can I tell you about Chase Stone? Damn.

I never built much of a profile up on that guy. Didn’t need to. Everyone was after him. CIA. FBI. Interpol. But that shit all came later. I met him before all that, when he was just a single thief in a big city. Kept up on his file throughout the years, he got himself in to some deep shit. Stole a lot of precious things that made a lot of people mad. Me? I just chuckled. After all, the kid started off as a Pie Baker. How does a Pie Baker become an international thief? It don’t make sense.

He worked for his pa in the family bakery as a kid. Got a knack for making the sweetest pies you’d ever tasted and took that skill to the competitions. He did good, won a lot of money that, in the end, helped save his pa’s little bakery from closing down. It was only a family run place, you know? A lot of the big chains were springing up all over the place. The people began to prefer donuts to pies. They were easier to eat out on the street, you know? Didn’t have to sit down to eat and people were busy, busy, busy. Didn’t want to stop for nothing or no one. Chase, he wasn’t so good at donuts. He was a pie boy at heart and for a long time that’s all he thought he’d ever be.

But still, the kid did great on the competitive pie baking circuit. At least, he did for a while but the way I heard it, the family business sinking put him in a downer state. He started losing his flare a bit. To try and bounce back he made what the pike baking community call “the forbidden pies”. Utter bullshit really. I mean, okay. Chicken pie is weird. Meat in a pie? What were the Brits thinking? Disgusting stuff. But should it be “forbidden”? I’d say probably not. Poison-berry pie though… well it wasn’t exactly poison. Nobody died or even got sick so I don’t see what the problem was. My opinion don’t matter though. Chase got kicked out of the circuit and shunned by his peers. That was it. He was done. Finito. Out of there.

I guess that’s why he started stealing. It had to be because up until this point he was nothing but a good boy. But failing family business, no way to help keep them afloat. A good person would have gone out and got another job but then, Chase had a bad streak in him. I don’t know what he stole first. It took us ages to connect the robberies to him at all, he was that good. He didn’t start leaving his signature pie-calling-card-things until after I met him anyway. Not the point. The point was I don’t know how he got into the game of robbing stuff but he got there. He did it. He broke the law and he had to be brought in. Those are the rules, right?

So my first case that we knew it was Chase (not at the start but I found out pretty soon it was him) was this diamond heist downtown. Someone had robbed a pawn shop, horrid place with this huge yellow sign that just pulsed and glowed above the door non-stop day and night, even when the damned place was closed. The owner, some money-grabbing tubby scum bag, always wanted everyone to know that if they had something of even remote value, he would pay them a pittance for it so they could make rent. Boohoo if you wanted it back though. The interest rates on loaning were like a freaking rocket ship, soaring way up higher than anyone in that neighbourhood could afford. Still, people went to him. They needed to or they’d be homeless and the streets were running out of room fast.

Anyway, this pawn shop dealt in heirlooms too. People round there may have been piss poor but not all of them had always been that way. Like, a generational thing, you know? Some of them still had Grandma’s ruby slippers or Great-Great-Aunt Tilly’s pearl earrings or something. By law, the owner (was his name Randall? I’m gonna call him Randall because I’ll be damned if I actually cared about his real name), Randall, had to keep any precious items he was “holding on to” on site until the original owner gave him whatever amount of money he had extorted out of them.

There was this safe in the floor under these old Persian rugs that nobody even wanted to go near. I mean, they may as well have been infested with giant mutant moths or something. The sheer amount of dust trapped in them could suffocate anyone, believe you and me. It was the perfect place to put a safe because there was a decoy in the wall behind the till and no one would check over by them god damn mouldy rugs. But apparently someone did. Chase did, but when I arrived on the scene in the early hours of the morning, well I didn’t know a god damn thing. The night shift was brutal and the need to sleep often made me bleary eyed and delirious if the coffee didn’t send me jittering off to crazy town.

So I get to the scene. The shutters around the glass windows which ought to have been pulled down were all battered and half way up. They couldn’t go any further because they were so out of shape which was unusual for a crime scene. Most thieves found it easier to break in through a skylight or round the back, where they wouldn’t be seen on the street. Thievery required stealth, you know? I mean, Chase had stealth. He had a lot of things but I’m getting ahead of myself. So shutters all bent and broken and whatever. Police tape around the outside of the building to cordon off the civilians, not that anyone really dared go out at night in that part of the city. Not unless they had to anyway. So no witnesses. You know, I’m still not sure if there were no witnesses because nobody was around that night, or because in our city nobody _wanted_ to witness nothing. Life was easier if you kept your nose to the ground and remained blind to the world around you.

Inside there were the usual suspects milling around, taking photos, marking things, doing their police work like it was no biggie because it wasn’t. The lackeys just got on with it, noisily perhaps but I didn’t care. Let them have their jokes and get confused with the evidence. It was all part of becoming a real cop, you know? Who hadn’t made a few mistakes? No one I knew on the force was perfect. They all fucked up. It was part of being human.

So the lackeys were doing their thing. Randall was hovering by the till, watching the ants scurry about marking up the place with these greedy little beady eyes of his that sunk way back into his squishy face flesh. Even in the dull flickering shop lights (ridiculous in comparison to the tacky sun beam that he surrounded the exterior with) you could see the sweat just pouring down his bald potato shaped head, gluing his comb over to his scalp. I could smell the pit stains on his white tank top before I could see them. The whole store reeked of laziness to be honest but Randall just burst with it like an exploded rotten cabbage.

“So how much money’d they take from the till?” I asked, forcing myself into the spotlight of his distrusting gaze.

“No money. The till’s untouched.” Randall grunted, looking past me to watch the ants scurry about some more.

“Hey, eyes here pal,” I was tired and maybe a bit hungover. I wasn’t going to let this asshole look past me like I was invisible, you know? It just wasn’t my style. I was there to work and he was gonna damn well pay me some respect and answer my questions. “So what did they take?”

“Jewels from the safe.” Randall shrugged like it was no biggy but the look in his tiny little eyes was one that I’d seen on all of my cases. It was the desire for justice or revenge, whichever came first.

“The safe on the wall is untouched.” I said like a dunce. I had eyed up the big safe as I walked in, wondering why it was being ignored but I figured, hey, these guys would get it eventually. No need to rush them, you know?

“The one over there,” he paused, probably refraining himself from adding an insult because he was just that type of jackass. “Took a case of about twenty diamond rings, some pearl earrings, and an emerald necklace. The whole lot is probably worth a thousand bucks.”

“About? Probably? I don’t deal in approximates. We need to know exactly what was taken and the value of it.” I raised an eyebrow. Took me years to learn to do it. My pops could and as a kid I would spend ages in the bathroom mirror practicing so that I could impress my old man. He wasn’t impressed but by god, I was.

“I need to check my books to be sure.” Randall shifted his gargantuan weight from one foot to another. I knew what that meant, I wasn’t stupid. It meant that he needed time to cover up that he had ripped people off. It wasn’t a crime and I was tired so I didn’t care what he did. The idiots shouldn’t flock to him in the first place. They knew what they were getting.

“You go do that then. Be sharp about it. I don’t got all day.” I turned my back on Randall. I could hear the floorboards creak as he waddled off to do his shady business in the back room. Really I shouldn’t have let him get away with it but what did I care at 3am?

Scouring the room, I spotted the most senior officer under me and beckoned him over with a finger. There was nothing special about this guy. Just another forgettable face with another forgettable name. They all had the same personality too, the guys who ordered the lackeys. They felt like big fish and puffed their chests out to prove it. The truth was they didn’t have any power and they simpered to their higher ups like that would get them promoted. Fools, the lot of them, but I s’pose everyone dreams.

“We got any witnesses? Suspects?” In my pocket I keep this notebook, a little reporter’s pad. I still carry one around, you know. Should have got it out when I did my first talk with Randall but I knew that slimeball wouldn’t have anything useful to me straight away. Men like him are all the same so I kept it in my pocket. Talking to the head of the crime scene though, well, they always want to impress and it’s worth taking notes because idiots tend to forget half of what they’ve said, so eager to spill the beans on the situation.

“No witnesses, suspects, surveillance, nothing. My boys can’t even find a scrap of DNA on the place. We’re beginning to reckon it was an inside job. God knows this guy would raid his own place just for the insurance money.” The head lackey shrugged. We liked them simple, open and shut. They never were though and I could feel it in my gut: this time was no different.

“Nothing at all? Not anything weird or interesting or-?” I stopped as a look came across his face. Clearly I had reminded him of something worth noting at least.

“Crumbs. There were these crumbs by the safe and more outside where the shutters’ been beat.” The look on his face was so sincere, so serious. I wanted to smack it right off.

“Crumbs? You think _crumbs_ are worth noting? Have you seen how filthy this place is?” I asked. Maybe I raised my voice a bit. I thought he was being stupid.

“There were no crumbs anywhere else. Just thought it might be important.” He retreated into himself a bit, going red with the feeling of foolishness. At the time I thought it was damn right of him too but actually that moron had stumbled on to a genuine clue. I shouldn’t have been so quick to judge.

“Well you sweep up those crumbs. Maybe you’ll get lucky and find some DNA or shit on them.” I ordered, swatting at him to get away. Fucking idiot. Crumbs. He deserved a rude dismissal for wasting my time with that crap.

“I’ll have them sent to the lab right away.” He probably said something like that. They always say something like that. I wasn’t listening though. I was too busy making my way over to the obscure, cracked safe.

Squatting down, I saw the lackey was right. There were crumbs, a sizeable bunch of them, scattered around the bottom of the safe. A lot had been left untouched. Rare china, golden candlesticks, vintage garbage, that kind of thing. There was no jewellery left though. That was gone.

Standing back up, I stretched and clicked my back. It had been a long night, mainly writing reports that nobody would bother to read for the sake of procedure. Glancing at my wristwatch, it was more or less my time to clock off. I was done for the night. Good because I didn’t want to deal with Randall’s bullshit. Let that be someone else’s problem. I could read the interview transcript on my next shift.

“Hey,” I called the head lackey over once more. “Have someone take whathisname down to the station and get him properly interviewed, okay? I want the initial report on my desk in less than twenty-four hours or heads are going to roll. I’m going to get a drink.”

It was a hollow threat and they all knew it. Still, I said jump so they were going to do it because that boot licker knew it would get him promoted. There were nods and words of understanding but I was already out the door, undoing my top button to get a little bit of that cool air. There was still no one about but that was fine. Reporters were vultures and a small job like this wasn’t exactly big news anyway. At least there was no one to avoid hitting with my car, meaning I got to make a speedy getaway to my favourite dive: The Torso Bar.


	2. The Torso Bar

The Torso Bar was the grittiest dive in town. Set up during the Prohibition, you’d think it’d be crammed full of low lives and scum. It was cheap; carved up wooden surfaces, naked light bulbs swinging from the ceiling. Heck, it even had a busted up old jukebox in the corner that ate all your dimes and warbled out tunes like a tone deaf bird. Half the balls from the pool table were missing, most of them lobbed at the shattered mirrors behind the bar in an attempt to smash the bottles behind the bartender’s head. The green felt was stained with booze, vomit, and just a smidgeon of blood. The place was a fucking shithole.

I loved it.

The bartender, an old fella who went by the name Ol’ Baby Gus, ran the joint. I don’t know what that bastard did or said or what but the gangs never fucked with him. People just knew better than to cross Gus. It kept the riff raff out meaning that cops could enjoy their time off there as much as the next person. I liked Gus. He was a good man trying to make an honest living. He liked me too, probably nothing to do with the fact that back in them days I was a regular. My shitty little apartment was a block away after all. The Torso was my regular and Gus, well, he might have been the only guy I considered a friend.

“Rough day?” Gus asked, same as always as I slumped down in my usual stool at the bar.

He was wiping a glass with a white muslin cloth that may or may not have had a bit of puke on the corner that wasn’t used for cleaning. It was like one of those burping blankets for babies. God knows where he got it from or why he was using it. I always figured it wasn’t my place to ask.

“Shitty, as per. New case though.” I grunted. I didn’t need to say more. Gus knew exactly what I meant and what I needed. The Ol’ Baby set down the glass he’d just cleaned, threw the cloth over his shoulder and set about making my drink. You can never go wrong with Southern Comfort on ice.

“For you?” Gus asked, handing me over the drink. I tossed a few dollar bills at him in return.

“Doubt it. They only bring me in when it’s serial stuff to connect the dots, you know? This was a one off. Not my problem.” I shrugged. I was just the detective on call that night. Like I said, I only worked the high profile, serial stuff. Randall and his dodgy books weren’t really my problem.

Gus opened his mouth to answer me but was cut off by a loud bang from the far corner of the room. There was a little wooden stage crammed over there. Usually it housed the jukebox but that night there was a microphone on it and some dumbass in a tunic and cape had just knocked the stand over. The noise was so loud and sudden, it caused both Gus and I to jump. The difference was that I got over it straight away whereas Gus looked to freaking startled that he might cry. His hand was holding his heart and his eyes were all wide and wet, like a baby, you know? Well that look vanished after a moment to be replaced with his infamous old man disgruntlement. Throwing the cloth off his shoulder and on to the bar top, Gus marched over to yell at the moron who had done the thing.

I didn’t watch the interaction. Gus could hold his own and whatever it was had nothing to do with me. Instead I just nursed my drink and tried not to think about how tired I was. Should I have gone straight home to bed? Yeah, definitely. If I had there would be no story though and lucky me, I’m partial to a drink.

“So who’s that schmuck then?” I asked Gus as he came back. Tunic boy was still on stage, now having pulled out some stupid looking guitar that was too small and round. He was coughing and doing warm up exercises in to the mic which was pretty fucking grating as his voice kept transitioning over crackly speakers from this low gravelly shit to a singing voice smoother than milk.

“Some local act. He was busking outside, crying about living off of tips or whatever. He sounded half decent so I paid him $20 and said he could sing inside. I doubt he’ll bring any business but he won’t drive it off either.” Gus grimaced, gesturing around at the place.

The Torso was pretty much a ghost town. Only the regulars ever came here really. It was the wrong end of town, nowhere near the neon-lit clubs and casinos. Not noticeable enough to attract anyone who didn’t know it was there. Just a couple of oddball individuals and elderly couples scattered about at a few grimy tables. I knew the face of everyone in that bar. I could probably still describe them all to you, I seen them that many times. I’m not going to though. It’d be a waste of time.

I nodded my head in acknowledgement of Gus’s information and then bowed my head to drink some more. Gus and I weren’t the chattiest. Didn’t want to be, didn’t need to be. Silence gave us both time to think and Gus, well he had a short attention span.

Anyway, so I’m sitting there, minding my own business. I think Gus was cleaning up tables or something like that. Doesn’t matter. What does is that the moron in the corner has finally finished fucking about with the mic and the warm ups and begins to sing. His voice was sweet, you know? High pitched and old timey, like the dumb singers in Robin Hood movies or whatever. Very smooth, very different to what you might expect. So at first I wasn’t really paying attention. The guy wasn’t helping my headache, but then neither was the alcohol. It wasn’t until he sang something like:

“ _…. Randall, what a scandal… diamond rings and pearl earrings…”_

Then my ears prick up. Those were details of a case across town, the case I’d just been at. There weren’t no witnesses or reporters at the scene so how could this bum know anything about it? He couldn’t. No one had had the time to talk about it yet so unless he’d been there and seen or even done the shit himself, there was no way of knowing.

Well, I was conflicted to say the least. I had clocked off. Sure, I still had my badge and gun on me but I wasn’t exactly in the mood to cuff this guy and frog march him to the station for a confession. Still, I couldn’t let him go without asking him a few questions at least. So I did the only thing I could think to do: I waited until his little ditty or whatever was over and then took him a fresh drink. Think it was a Bud Light or something. That was usually the special for new faces.

“So… what was the inspiration for that song?” I tried to ask all casual like as I handed the man the drink.

“Why, the remarkable, the uncatchable, the dazzling Chase Stone of course,” God, his voice was awful. It was all raspy and reminded me of serrated metal or that Igor character they added to the Frankenstein films. You know, the hunch back slave who was never in the book. “Thanks.”

“No worries. Who’s this Chase Stone character then?” I leant against the wall, speaking while he took a long gulp of his free beverage.

“Renowned Pie Baker turned thief. Haven’t you heard of him?” The guy seemed shocked that I didn’t know who Chase Stone was. This was before Chase really got big, you know? So of course I hadn’t fucking heard of him.

“No. He in the papers or something?” I took a sip of my own drink to keep it casual.

I was so focused on the guy in front of me on the stage. He looked like some wacky cartoon character almost. His hair was cut like a mushroom top and he had just the strangest outfit on. From his jolly and incredulous disposition I could tell he was an idiot, although he had already proven that by being a clutz. I distinctly remember him being short. Even on that small ass stage his eyes were only just level with mine. It was crazy, just how he looked.

“Not yet. The cops ain’t caught him. Bet those dummies don’t even know he exists!” The mushroom man guffawed. It was such a horrid sound, I ought to have punched him just to shut the fucker up. But he had information and I needed him.

“Oh yeah? So what does this Chase Stone do then? What’d he steal?”

“Why, just tonight he broke in to a pawn shop down town and stole some jewellery. Want me to sing my song again?” The guy was so eager to sing again. His voice was nice but I wasn’t particularly in the mood to be serenaded.

“I’ll skip the song, thanks. What kind of jewels?” I pressed.

“No kind of jewels.” a man’s voice came from behind me.

I turned around and there he was, Chase fucking Stone.

Not to sound all mushy and poetic but that man, well, he looked like he had been carved out of an arrow. He was all straight lines, chiselled out of sandstone or something. Trust me, you’ve never seen a jaw so strong or legs so defined and muscular. You just haven’t. And if I thought his friend was dressed weird, that was nothing on Chase himself. I mean, all he wore was some oven mitts, a pink frilly apron, and a long tan trench coat. If that weren’t enough he’d squeezed his feet in to some large stylish pink heels. God knows where he got them from. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were custom made to fit his large feet. Man, that man had legs for days. They just went up and up, finally disappearing behind the pink and the frills. He was, objectively speaking, incredibly handsome. His features were just so defined, so smooth, not even that dumb as shit hair style (I mean, who had both a pompadour _and_ a man bun for Pete’s sake) could ruin his aesthetic.

“Stop telling people I’m a thief. There’s no way to prove that.” Chase spoke right through me in a voice that was deep and sticky, just like honey.

“But Chase-”

“You’re talking to a cop.” Chase jerked his head at me. It was rude but I was too interested in the exchange to call him out on it.

“Detective, actually. How’d you know?” I asked, folding my arms. It was typical of me back then to act all closed off and hostile.

“You dropped your badge.” Chase handed my badge back to me. I didn’t even know it had gone missing and now that I know Chase, I bet I didn’t even drop it to begin with.

“Chase Stone, I assume?” I asked coolly, taking back my badge and fastening it to my belt where it belonged.

“At your disposal.” Chase made a sweeping bow which scrunched up the hem of his apron to reveal just a bit more leg.

“If you’re at my disposal then would you and your friend mind coming down to the station with me and answering some questions about a case?”  It was a bit cheeky but it wasn’t like I could trick the fellas in to coming with me. The rules said they had to come of their own free will.

“Aha,” Chase chuckled, bowing his head and shaking it like he had just caught a naughty child in the act. “I think we’ll pass. Thanks for the offer though.”

“Maybe some other time.” I shrugged.

There wasn’t much left I could do and neither of the two men seemed to want to talk to me anymore. I’m not one to stick around when I’m clearly not wanted, not on my own time at least. Taking my cue, I went back over to the bar and ordered another drink. Back at the stage the singer carried on with his tunes but I stopped listening to them. Gus handed me my double and I nursed it like a pathetic puppy sulking over nothing really. I didn’t care too much about the case then but I there was something about it. I was just so damn disappointed.

The Torso was an old fashioned place, I told you that right? Well, there was this bell above the door that rang every time someone came in and out. The bell ringing was a rare occurrence though, otherwise it might have been irritating. It still annoyed the shit out of me. It was a sharp unwelcome blast into my consciousness. I’m pretty sure the other regulars felt the same because any time some chump opened that door everyone’s heads would turn to glare at the offender. Well, the offender that time – or should I say offender _s_ – were a bunch of known street thugs from one of the gangs. I don’t remember which. They were all stupid. It wasn’t like the old days where there was a single defining feature for them, you know? Diversity is great an all but it doesn’t make for easy police work.

Anyway, these bunch of thugs walk in peacocking it. Chests puffed out, hair slicked back, heads held high, that kind of shit. Clearly they were a bunch of idiots in new territory because everyone in those parts just knew not to fuck with Gus. I said that too, right? Well, these punks walk in and take one look at me. Keep in mind I ain’t doing anything to disturb nobody, I’m just minding my own business, drinking my drink, wishing I was in bed. Well they eye me up and instantly go into attack mode. I’m talking glares, knuckle crunching, the whole lot. I didn’t want any trouble. I wanted my bed. Still, before I can even attempt to defuse the situation Gus is up in arms, massive antique shotgun pointed right at the fuckers.

“Out.” He growled.

The gang just looks at him like he’s crazy. They were gonna laugh, insult him but Gus wasn’t having any of it.

“This is my bar, this guy is my friend. Get out.” Gus jerks the barrel of the shotgun towards them and the little punks jump.

As quickly as they came in they were gone again. A whole bunch of pointless tension, you know? It was like, what was the point? I stared at the closed door and watched them cross the street. They weren’t doing nothing wrong so I couldn’t call for a cop to keep an eye on them.

“Thank god they left,” Gus spoke up as he put his gun back under the bar. “I don’t even know how to fire this thing.”

I couldn’t help myself. I laughed.

“I could have you arrested for just pointing that at them idiots.” I shook my head. Of course I wasn’t gonna do it. Gus was a valuable asset to the local community. If he was behind bars then the world was coming to an end.

“And I could cut you off.” Gus joked back.

Gus didn’t cut me off though. He did kick me out an hour later though when it was closing time. It was only right. I’m not admitting I was drunk but by god, I needed to go home and get some rest. I’d been putting it off for too long. So I stumbled out on to the street. It was dark, obviously, and the streetlights were giving me a banging headache. I tried to shrug it off and swat the lights away but of course that did nothing so instead I just slumped back towards my apartment.

There’s a shortcut to the back of my building down this narrow little alley at the side of The Torso. Leads right to the fire escape at the back of my place and I lived on the fourth floor. Should I have been climbing the wet, rusty fire escape after drinking? Probably not but it never killed me.

Well, I was staggering towards this death trap shortcut home when seemingly out of nowhere this fist comes flying out from behind a trash can. Bang, it smacks straight in to the side of my face, knocking me head first into the fucking wall. The two points where I’ve made contact with something solid felt like they burst in to flames. It was so hot and the side where I’d hit the wall felt a bit wet. I was bleeding but I didn’t really know it at the time. I mean, why would I? I was too busy reeling from the shock of a sudden hit to really think about what was happening to my body, you know?

So I slump down the wall, dazed out of my mind. Before I can really even blink I’m being pulled up by my collar and then beat back down again. This time the fuckers leave me on the floor though and start kicking me like a bunch of schoolyard bullies. At this point I can barely move. It’s as much as I could do to curl in to some sort of defensive ball but I’m losing it fast. My head is woozy, my body is just pain. I knew I was gonna pass out but there was nothing I could do to defend myself. Like a dumbass I didn’t even think to reach for my gun. Thank god or they probably would have shot me right then and there.

I was on the verge of passing out. It wasn’t pretty. Now this next bit, well I’m not even sure what I saw. I just remember raising my head a little at some sort of movement through the sea of legs. Thought it might have been another cop but it was two guys. One all chiselled and dynamically posed like some sort of model superhero or something. The other was squat and round and palming what looked like a stupid small guitar. I tried to call out to them but it was only a rasped whoosh of useless air. Didn’t matter, as they began to move down the alley towards us I got a kick to the eye and the world just went black.


	3. So Close Yet So Far

God knows how much time I was out for. I’m still not quite sure myself but then again, exactly how relevant is the passage of time anyway? The point was, I was unconscious for… well, a while. Let’s just put it that way. When I finally woke up, whenever that was, I didn’t know where I was.

That’s not true. I knew I was in an apartment, that much was obvious. No idea where it was though or who it belonged to. The furnishings were nothing like mine. Everything I owned was brown, boring but cheap and in a big city on shitty pay cheap was all I could afford. This place though, well it wasn’t exactly luxurious or nothing. No way in hell it was home to the rich but clearly whoever lived in it was comfortable to say the least.

Like, the lights hanging from the ceiling had beige cone shades and there was a nice circular rug on the floor. There were no photos or anything on any of the various surfaces. Not of families at least. There were various artistic snaps of pies with dates scrawled across the corners. I was laying on this plush green sofa, sickly colour. Green is just not meant for the indoors, you know? Just leave that shit outside. Anyway, I’m laying on the green sofa and there’s a coffee table a good foot in front of me with a steaming mug of hot joe on it next to a little white bowl full of sugar cubes. No spoon though. I distinctly remember no spoon for the sugar cubes.

Anyway, I open my eyes, look around and try to figure out where the hell I am. My head is throbbing like a mother fucker and it prickles behind my eyes. A stubborn person would have sat up, snooped around a bit but I felt like I’d been hit with a fleet of garbage trucks so I wasn’t sitting up any time soon. I just lay there, letting my eyes focus on this cup of coffee that I assumed was for me.

Once I figured out what I was seeing I turned my attention to sound. I remember that. There was this weird whooshing whirring sound coming from somewhere. I couldn’t be bothered to sit up and look for the source. Luckily I didn’t even have to. Past the cup of joe was a door which had just been left wide open. It lead to Chase’s room. He had a vanity table on the opposite side of the room with this petite stool. There he was, sat at it, back to me.

At first I thought he was buck-ass nude as I saw two perfectly rounded cheeks just perched on this little three legged thing. It took my eyes a minute to realise there were ribbons tied around the back of his neck and across the middle of his back meaning that he was still wearing nothing but that goddamn apron. He still had the oven mitts on too, god knows why. He just always had them on. His hair was not done up in that strange fashion though. Not then. It was all wet and just a curtain of glossy black around his head. In one mitt he had one of them fancy hairdryers with the weird nozzle that was meant to give you more volume when you dried your hair or something like that. The kind of hairdryer that was always in ads in the magazines and on TV. In the other hand he had some sort of hairbrush I guess. Doesn’t matter. The point was that when I woke up he was doing his hair like a chick and that was where the weird noises were coming from.

Now, I didn’t know what to do. I don’t know how I got in this situation but the fact was that I was there and not inclined to move at any point soon. My head ached and I was just overwhelmed with new information. Also the smell of apple pie. God, I couldn’t even smell the coffee over the sweet, sweet stench of warm apple pie wafting in from somewhere behind me. So what did I do? I stared at Chase as he tamed his magnificent locks. I tried to keep my eyes focused on his hand movements but hey, I’m only human and his ass was bare and directly in my field of vision so maybe my eyes wandered a bit from time to time. Sue me.

I must have dozed back off like that because the next thing I know, I’m opening my eyes and Chase has moved his stool right between me and the coffee table and he’s sipping daintily that mug of coffee that I thought had been left for me. His hair was back up in that weird do so I must have been out for a while.

“You took quite a beating in that alley.” Chase spoke as soon as my eyes were open. He raised both his eyebrows and gave me this kind of knowing look. It wasn’t smug but it felt smug. If I wasn’t in his debt I’d have socked him one.

“Yeah, well, thanks. For helping me out.” I wasn’t one to really show gratitude. Usually it was the other way around. I’m not used to having my ass handed to me and then being saved. I’m not exactly the damsel in distress type. I get beat, I get left, I pick myself back up, and I go to the bar.

“My pleasure,” Chase nodded. “Who wouldn’t want to rescue a handsome hunk from a bunch of thugs.”

“Ah,” I grimaced, pushing myself up. “I’m not, uh…”

Back in those days I was still figuring out the easiest way to correct people on their mistake. More often than not morons would watch me flounder as I tried to come up with the right words to explain myself.

“I see. A beautiful babe then?” Chase offered up an alternative. Not many people were smart enough to do that. Too many got confused and questioned me which just made shit worse.

“Uh, no.” I shook my head. I was embarrassed but back in those days it was still a foreign concept to most. Not to Chase though. He just got it.

“My apologies. Who wouldn’t want to rescue an attractive human from a bunch of thugs?”

And that was it. It was no big deal. Chase just sipped from his mug like nothing was wrong. I mean, nothing _was_ wrong but it was just an unusual change for me. I didn’t know where to look or what to do with myself so I just scratched my head and looked anywhere but at the first person to automatically accept me for who I was.

“Yeah, well, like I said. Thanks. You didn’t have to.”

Then the conversation changed. He directed it, began asking me if I wanted pie and what kind. I still felt awkward as shit but I was polite, you know? It would have been rude to just get up and go when he was being so hospitable to me so I agreed to pie on the condition that it was served warm and with ice cream. That’s the only way to eat it. I don’t care who disagrees with me. Chase was fine with it and disappeared off into the kitchen to serve us up some grub.

That left me on my own again. Like a dope I just sat around, taking in my surroundings like I would remember them clear as a photograph later on, twiddling my thumbs. The door to Chase’s room was still open. I was curious and wanted to snoop inside but at first I resisted. Still, I stared through the crack and saw something I wish to God I hadn’t seen. On the vanity alongside the discarded hairdryer and brush was something glinting green in the light.

Well what choice did I have? He was already a suspect, maybe an unofficial one but a suspect nonetheless. That tubby, mushroom-headed friend of his seemed to connect him to my crime scene. It was my duty as a cop to at least look at what was in there. So I got up and went in. Didn’t look around like I had originally wanted to, just headed straight for the shiny thing like a bird.

Sure enough, just out in the open like it was nothing, was an emerald necklace that did not belong there. I wanted to give Chase the benefit of the doubt but the pawn tag from Randall’s shop was still stuck to the clasp. I closed my eyes and shook my head. I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to arrest Chase on the spot. Not that I had anything to actually arrest him with. My gun and badge were gone and I definitely didn’t have my cuffs with me.

It wasn’t like I could stay and eat pie with him after that. Part of me wanted to. He seemed like a nice guy, definitely one worth knowing. But he broke the law. It was my job to take guys like him down. So I did the only thing I could do. I left while Chase was still in the kitchen.

Was it a cowardly thing to do?

Yes.

Should I have confronted him?

Yes.

Would it have changed what happened next?

Probably not in the slightest.

So it turned out Chase lived in a familiar neighbourhood not all that far from mine. It was a bit of a trek from his place to anywhere I wanted to go but by god I walked it (after making a note of where Chase lived of course). In my grubby clothes from the night before every Tom, Dick, and Larry was stopping and staring at me. I didn’t care. My aim was to get to the precinct as fast as my bruised and battered legs would carry me. I could change once I was there.

Within a couple of hours I had a fresh change of clothes and was in a car with a team to raid Chase’s apartment. The whole time I was just being eaten alive by guilt but the law is the law. At first the schmuck handling the case, some dipshit named Thompson, didn’t want to investigate my lead. Not that he had any of his own but he found it hard to believe that I’d stumbled on to something so big it would already require a raid. The evidence was a bit dodgy, I’ll give him that but in the end it was all he had to go on. Maybe the chief forced his hand a bit because of the pressure from the city council to get results. Maybe not. Either way, Thompson was leading the charge with me by his side because I was the only one who knew where we were going.

You know, I don’t even think I got paid overtime for that (which, I mean, it technically was). Good. I didn’t feel like I deserved to get paid for it. I felt like a friggin’ rat.

Well we show up and you know how it goes. Tac team through the front and one spread out round the back and the perimeter in case anyone tries to escape. I lead Thompson up to the correct floor and door. There was no mistaking the scent of pies. All I could think at time was thank god I wasn’t the lead. I was too much of a pussy to knock on the door and yell through. I didn’t want to be doing this even though Chase was a criminal. It shouldn’t have mattered what kind of guy he was. It never really bothered me before but there was just this nagging and nagging in the back of my head that taking this one down wasn’t right. It was right though. Morally, legally, in all senses I was doing the right thing.

Why did it feel so god damn wrong?

Anyway, Thompson yells through the door. No answer. He follows all the procedures and in the end his boys get out the battering ram and take the bloody piece of wood out. We all spill inside, guns drawn and instantly I’m fucking gobsmacked. The place was wiped clean. I mean, there was _nothing_. No furniture, no Chase, and after a forensic sweep of the place there was no fucking DNA either.

Still, the boys fanned out to look for evidence, as was protocol. Thompson is just standing there glaring at me like I’m the world’s biggest jack ass. I didn’t even know what to do. How the hell did he clean out so fast? When we interviewed the neighbours later the only thing anybody had seen was Chase and his mushroom friend carrying the vanity table outside. No one saw where they went, if they had a car, nothing. Like always the witnesses were fucking useless.

But back to that moment. All of the rooms were empty except for the kitchen. I mean, all the stuff had been taken out of it but left on the side was a pie. Still steaming hot. There was a note next to it from Chase which was addressed to me. I didn’t get to keep it. It was evidence and the only thing from those early cases that actually connected him to the robberies. If it weren’t for me there wouldn’t be a file with his name on it. Just a codename, something dumb, like: the pie bandit or whatever.

You know, for the life of me I can’t remember what the note said. The exact words aren’t important I guess. The gist of it was: I’m sorry things turned out this way, I really like you, you’re never going to catch me so don’t try, there’s ice cream in the freezer. Well there was ice cream in the freezer but nobody touched it or the pie. Three bits of evidence was all we had for a raid. Nobody touched anything.

Well when the chief showed up on the scene while forensics was sweeping I got the bollocking of my life. According to him I should have tried to arrest Chase with no badge and no cuffs or I should have at least done something that didn’t immediately tip him off that we were gonna come back for a raid. I had wasted time and resources for what looked like nothing, even though it turned out to be a lot more than some others got at their scenes later down the line. That’s not the point.

The point was that after the whole incident I was banished to desk duty. Paperwork is a cop’s worst nightmare and by god is there a lot of it. I hated paperwork as much as the next guy so being chained to my desk reading and writing and filling in all the little boxes was just hell. The chief wanted me punished and he got just that. Fucking desk duty.

Now there’s only one way to get through desk duty _and_ the night shift: alcohol. Lots of it. Now I know we weren’t meant to drink on the job but fuck it, I wasn’t going nowhere and nobody was about to stop me. Did I make it obvious I was drinking? Hell no. I lit a cigarette because lung cancer was all the rage back then and I snuck swigs from a hip flask hidden in my desk drawer. Whilst doing paperwork I was a law unto myself. A very dangerous law surrounded in highly flammable materials but all I could think was fuck it. I did what I did. End of story.

The thing about paperwork is that that shit comes in waves. It’s boring as anything and allows your mind to wander so I could reflect on my alleged misdeeds the entire time I was doing it. But it comes in waves so there were points in my shift where I didn’t have much to do other than sit there, tired as balls, scratching my ass. I hated those moments. They were dull. Not as dull as the fucking paperwork but I’d rather have busy hands than be staring at a wall the whole day.

So in those lulls I used to start doing a bit of tipsy research. It was just innocent at first, looking up Chase to see if he was on any of our databases. He was but it was nothing really. Just a restraining order by those pie competition assholes. Even that file was skeletal, hardly anything in there. Other than that he was clean. I ended up widening my search to the internet, seeing if I could find anything that might lead me to his whereabouts.

The more I looked the more I drank and the more I drank the more I ignored my real job to frantically search for anything related to Chase. I became obsessed with Stone very quickly. I got the idea in my head that I’d find him and at least apologise before I took him away in cuffs. Not that there was anything to pin him on at that point. The original crime scene had no evidence linking him there. I know, I double checked everything those boys brought it. He wasn’t on the books, nothing.  

I started sleeping at my desk. Staying in work even though the chief made it clear I wasn’t being paid for overtime. I didn’t care. In the end I got the paperwork done when I was on the clock and spent the rest of my waking hours scouring deeper and deeper for any hint of Chase. All I ever found were some old newspaper articles from his pie contests. There were a couple of times when I was tempted to go to his family bakery but Thompson had already tried there and I was strictly forbidden from going.

Man, for a couple of hellish weeks I just lost myself. Didn’t know what else to do so I just searched.

Nothing ever came up.


	4. Last Sighting

At some point I returned to my apartment. I couldn’t tell you when or why. It was probably to shower and grab a change of clothes. Maybe to catch a few good winks before I went back into my hellish nightmare job. Whatever it was that got me back there, well let’s just say I woke up on my sofa with an empty bottle of SoCo in my hand and a splitting fucking headache.

One of the perks of living in a completely brown environment is that at least the shithole of an apartment didn’t hurt my eyes or worsen my headache when I woke up hungover. One of the perks of living alone is that there’s nobody there to judge you for passing out drunk on the couch again. One of the perks of modern technology is being able to communicate with anyone at any time. I say this last one like it’s always a perk but let’s be real. It isn’t. Especially not when you’re hungover and the phone is shrilling louder than one of them opera ladies and your head feels like it’s going to split open in two.

It took me a minute to get up and stagger my way to the landline. I had to keep holding on to things like the walls and furniture because my legs were jelly and my brain was just mush. I finally answered the damn thing and I wish I hadn’t for no other reason than the asshole who was at the other end of the line.

“Where the hell have you been, D?”

Thompson was the only one who bothered calling me D. Everyone else called me Delaney because that was my last name. I don’t even think half the force _knew_ my first name and I liked it that way. First names were reserved for friends and family, you know? From my colleagues I thought I deserved a little more respect. Thompson didn’t seem to get the memo though and insisted on calling me D. Probably because in his pathetic mind D was short for Dickhead.

“Hell. What do you want Thompson?” I snarled. I’m not in the mood to be dealing with that prick at any time of the day, let alone when I’ve first reached consciousness, you know?

“You better get your ass uptown, D. Your boyfriend just robbed the jewellers on Fifth Street.” Thompson thought he was so fucking funny. Well ha ha ha, he wasn’t. Not in the slightest.

“I don’t have a boyfriend you moronic sack of-”

“The main suspect is none other than your Chase Stone. He left another pie. Smells like cherry.” Thompson cut me off in such a typical Thompson way. What an asshole.

“Fifth Street? I’ll be there in an hour.” I hung up on him because that was all I needed to get me motivated.

I told you, I was obsessed with Chase. I’m not proud of my behaviour but that’s what I was. It was how I was. I couldn’t have been, well, not happier. That’s the wrong adjective. But I was damn grateful to be called out from behind the desk to deal with Chase. If he’d left a pie, which had evolved in to some sort of calling card, then maybe he’d left me another letter. Perhaps there was another hint to finding him. I wanted to talk to him again just as much as I wanted to put that sucker behind bars. It was nothing personal against him but Chase needed to know the power of the law. Damn, everyone in that city needed to know the full power of the law.

So I changed into some fresh pants, brushed my teeth, and grabbed my coat before charging out of the door to my car. I’d said to Thompson an hour but I was there in twenty with a steaming hot cup of coffee in my hand to combat the headache.

“God you look like shit.” Thompson said the second I was in earshot.

He was waiting for me outside the jewellers wrapped up in one of those police anorak things that was way too big for his spindly body. It was overcast that day and his glasses had somehow steamed up but he wasn’t in a rush to fix them. Around Thompson the lackeys were scurrying about looking for clues, flagging shit, tagging shit, and taking photos.

It was nearly identical to the first crime scene, only this time the targeted shop was much classier than Randall’s pawn palace. The shutters had still been bent up but there was nothing left inside bar the furniture and the money in the safe. The jewels had all been taken, every last one which included the stuff being cleaned and mended in the basement.

Thompson gave me a run-down of all this of course while we were walking inside. Since the case seemed to have taken a turn in to my wheelhouse Thompson was asking for my help on the matter. IT’s not like I was an expert but I knew a thing or two about high profile robberies, serial robberies, and Chase fucking Stone. So of course he wanted my help. If I helped out then he would still get to be lead on the case. If I didn’t then it would end up on my desk eventually anyway. In the end I just thought “fuck it” and agreed to help the bastard. I had already begun to see how heavily the case was affecting me. If I ended up taking it over I’d run myself in to the grave before we were anywhere near catching Chase. Let Thompson do all the hard work and then the paperwork to boot. We’d both get what we wanted that way.

Anyway, Thompson gives me the lowdown, takes me inside, blah blah blah. We get into the back room where the safe is kept and there’s the stairs to the basement workshop. The door to the safe was just sitting wide open, no signs of forced entry from what the report said. Anyway, on top of a couple of fat stacks of cash was a pie. Thompson had been right, it did smell like cherry. Unlike the first pie this one had gone cold from where it hadn’t been found in so long. Also unlike the first pie there was no note next to it. Forensics ended up taking the pie back to the lab to analyse it in case there was poison or DNA or even a hidden note inside of it. There was nothing. It was just a cherry pie.

Well we were fucking baffled. Thompson and I spent ages down at the station looking at all the evidence about how Chase got in in the first place. He would have had to have picked the front door lock and either known or cracked the safe to get in. Obviously he’d used brute strength to get the shutters up but why bother? Most thieves just broke a window or a skylight or blasted their way in. Most thieves left some sort of trace behind, something for us to work with. Not Chase though. He was too good. He was mocking us, mocking me by leaving that pie.

I felt awful after that. Like I’d been hit with a cold or something only there were no physical symptoms, just my mind was in a weird and dark place. I felt wracked with guilt for a man I hardly knew and at the same time I was spurred on by my sense of justice. It was a paradoxical time for me.

Every time Thompson and I thought we had something figured out there was no evidence to really back it up. We put out an appeal on the television and the radio and in the papers asking for people to step forward with any information on Chase. No one came forward but those wacky conspiracy nuts, you know? Well, what should we have expected? Putting out an appeal like that is grasping at straws. And by this point the papers had picked up the story. The public seemed to like Chase, even though they knew nothing about him. They were impressed by his ability to vanish without a trace.

In the following weeks Chase hit another three jewellers around town, leaving a different flavour of pie at each one. You know, there was one point where Thompson and I genuinely believed the pies were some sort of code? We were taking the letters and locations and trying to unscramble it like a cipher or something. We spent late nights at the station going out of our minds. It turned out to be nothing other than a massive waste of time. Chase was too clever for that.

In case it’s not obvious, we were going nuts. My madness had spread to Thompson, just without the use of drink. There was a lot of pressure on us from the Chief to get results and we just had nothing. In a fit of desperation I left the station early one night, pay be damned. I needed a break, to clear my head and just let go of Chase for maybe a minute. If I could just get some rest, some distance, maybe I could return to the case with some fresh perspective and crack it. So I went to the only place that could give me that: The Torso Bar.

“Ain’t seen you in ages.” Gus noted by way of greeting as I slumped down on my favourite bar stool.

“Work’s got me going mad.” I shook my head. Gus understood. There had been times over the years where I just didn’t show up because of a manic case. None had ever been as bad as this one though.

“Mad you say? Well the only cure for that is a double.” Gus winked and poured me a drink.

I took my wallet to throw some cash at him but he stopped me and shook his head.

“On the house. Welcome back.”

I tell you what, I could have cried. Sure, Gus and I were friends and every so often he would give me a free drink. Working with Thompson on an unmoving case had been so fucking taxing though. I was shattered to the bone and just drained. I really did need that double and the kindness I was facing after being stuck in with Thompson all day just sent my emotions from zero to one hundred. I didn’t cry though because I’m not a pussy but the sentiment was there.

“Thanks Gus.” I lifted my glass to him in respect and took a sip. I ought to have just down it in one but I wasn’t sure my nerves or my stomach could take it.

Gus just smiled and pottered off to the other end of the bar to serve another guy. More or less on my own, I did the only thing I could do. I surveyed the bar. Of course all the familiar faces were there and maybe one or two people that had just wandered in off the street for the first time looking for a pint. Down the end of the bar I could hear Gus reeling off the day’s specials: “Bud Light, Bud Light, and shut up.” It was always the same every day. It made me chuckle.

As I was watching the people around me, the stage crammed in to the corner caught my eye. It took me back to when I first met Chase and it gave me an idea.

“Hey, Gus, did that clumsy busker and his friend in the apron with the dumb hair ever come back?” I asked, trying to keep it cool.

“Who?” Gus had a poor memory but I was sure he’d remember these guys with enough prompting.

“You know, the mushroom headed guy with the round guitar and his friend. Had a pompadour-man-bun combo going on?” I tried again.

“Never seen them before. Sounds like an odd looking couple though.” Gus shook his head.

Well my heart sunk. It had been a long shot but to be fair it made sense that they wouldn’t have returned there. The note from Chase’s apartment was enough evidence for me to arrest him and bring him to the station. Why would he return to the one place I was likely to be if he would almost definitely get arrested on sight?

After another drink I had lost all hope, as melodramatic as that sounds. I paid Gus what he was owed and then I got out of the bar. I was going to just go home and try and get some sleep but my feet just didn’t stop as I got the fire escape behind my place. Head bowed to the pavement I just walked and walked far away from everything familiar to me. It was like my body was on autopilot which was fine by me. On the inside I was trying to clear my head and lift my spirits as if that were actually possible.

I ended up in the commercial district by all the late night restaurants and theatres and other evening entertainment traps. As per, I ignored everyone around me, too absorbed in my own thoughts to care. Part of me was considering stopping to get something to eat. It had been so long since I’d had a good meal after all. The rest of me was aching to get home. I was tired, boozy, and just needed some god damn rest.

I did neither of those things though. No, instead I saw a big crowd between two trees with fairy lights in them and I got curious. People in the city didn’t tend to crowd around anything, not suicides, not street performers, no one. If there was a crowd something must have been up so naturally I joined them. Well thank god I had or I might have kicked myself a million times over the next day.

Sitting on a stone bench with his weird round guitar was that mushroom haired singer that was with Chase the first time I met him. Once again he was singing tales of Chase’s crimes to the crowd in that absurdly sweet voice of his. I nearly arrested the guy right then and there in front of all those people as he was a witness to a high profile case impeding the progression of the law. I didn’t though, not because I didn’t want to but because I thought I was smarter than that.

I began to slowly scan the crowd for Chase, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. If he had been close by mushroom boy the first time he was singing his songs then maybe, just maybe he’d still be around just to keep an eye on the guy. Well I didn’t see him in that crowd but I didn’t give either. I stayed, watching the people who came and left. None of them were ever Chase. Didn’t matter, I had a backup plan.

When the crowd started to disperse I went with them but stayed close by. I hid myself in the shadows and watched the busking mushroom pocket his tips and pick up his guitar. When he started walking away from the commercial centre I followed him at a respectable distance. If there was even the slightest chance he’d lead me to Chase then I was going to follow him. I’d have been on his tail all night if that’s what the situation had called for.

It didn’t.

I honestly have no idea how long I followed that guy for. Honestly I don’t even care. All that mattered then was my prize and all that matters now is that I actually had the balls to do it. He ended up leading me to a bar across town, one I didn’t even know existed. It was another dive like The Torso but it looked much grimier from the outside. I was hovering outside the door, wondering whether to call back up or to just go in solo and risk being seen when a stranger stepped out of the darkness to speak to me.

“I knew I shouldn’t have let The Bard go out by himself.” Chase Stone shook his head.

“Well it’s been your only mistake so far.” I pointed out.

Chase chuckled. “I’ve heard some very interesting tales about you detective. You really do seem to have lost your sanity in the search for me.”

“So maybe you drive me crazy. We should go somewhere and talk about it.” I tried to be playful but I was already thinking about how to detain Chase. I had handcuffs on me this time but no back up.

“What, down at the station? I think I’ll pass thanks,” He paused and then switched tactics. “Did you like my pies?”

“I’ve not eaten one. It was evidence. Maybe you can make me another one sometime?” I asked, digging my hands in to my coat pockets. I had the cuffs between my fingers. I could feel the smooth metal. All I had to do was say the words and arrest him.

“I don’t think they let you bake in prison,” Chase joked. “Anyway, I’m moving on from this place.”

“Oh yeah? Where are you going?” I should have stopped stalling but I couldn’t help myself. I wanted the conversation to play out.

“Here and there. Somewhere new. If you weren’t going to try and cuff me I’d ask for you to come with me. You seem like you’d make a great sidekick. If only your sense of justice wasn’t so strong.” Chase sounded disappointed.

“You can’t leave the city Chase. You have to do your time. I’m taking you in.” I revealed my cuffs which just made Chase laugh.

“I told you detective, you won’t catch me. At least I got to say goodbye.” There was a sadness in his eyes that got me all worked up with guilt again.

“Don’t run Chase.” It was a warning but also a plea. I don’t know if he got that but it didn’t matter.

“Goodbye detective. It was nice knowing you.” Chase took a step back as I stepped towards him.

Like an arrow he was off running down the streets with all the aerodynamic grace of a bullet. Long legs bounding, his coat flew off in the wind leaving those perfect cheeks exposed to me as I pursued. My speed was no match for his though and as soon as he rounded a corner I lost him.

The first thing I did was rush to a pay phone and get the streets filled with cop cars on the lookout for him. We filled the checkpoints on the roads, the bus and the train stations, the airport, the dock. Somehow Chase slipped through our fingers. He slipped through everyone’s fingers after that too. He was just that good.

I never saw Chase Stone again after that. When he moved on to the next city they called us up asking for advice. We gave them all the help we could but no one was ever going to catch him. I knew that in my heart from the second he disappeared from my sights. There were just some cases like that. The police didn’t always win. It sucks but it’s god’s honest truth.

Sure I regret not catching Chase. He broke the law. Did I beat myself up over it? Not in the slightest. He was being pursued and I hoped that one day someone might have caught him. No one ever did but it’s not the end of the world. There were plenty of guys who were far worse out there who needed my attention after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Chase Stone or The Bard as characters. They are the intellectual property of @FLoaBComic, @JuliaLepetit, and the @DrawfeeShow


End file.
